August 1995

About this Issue

Note from the Editors

Beginning this issue is Richard Sherer's travel lecture to a group of Town Historians from Steuben County aboard the Keuka Maid. Dick told of the history of steamboating on the lake and of the many boom times in Hammondsport. First there was grain and lumber transportation through the Crooked Lake Canal. Next came the table grape and wine periods of prosperity which partially conicided with the resort hotel and tourist era. Then came a few years of boom when Curtiss aircraft engines were manufactured in Hammondsport. Richard Sherer is Steuben County Historian. His talk was transcribed by Norma B. Crane who is Historian for Woodhull.

Bill Treichler reviews Robert Beck's Story. The book has just been published by the Crooked Lake Historical Society, and is available by mail for $20 from the Society by sending payment and shipping address to P. O. Box 154, Hammondsport, NY 14840.

Robert Anderson tells of the work and frustrations in finding water for daily use at a cottage along Keuka Lake. He mentions Jack MacCaul again in this article. Several people who read about Jack and Bertha in the January issue remembered them well. Robert V. Anderson lives in New Hartford, New York, and is emeritus professor of Political Science and Social History at Syracuse University.

John Rezelman describes the work during August, 1888, on T. N. Smith's farm near Kanona, New York. Mr. Smith was a thorough farmer who kept a complete diary. John Rezelman has included his own illustrations of how grain straw was tied in sheafs and shocked. John lives in Bath and continues to garden and care for his large lawn.

Barbara Bell contributes another chapter from her book, Letters to Suzanna. The book is a fictional account in the form of letters from a girl who grew up in Reading Town. Suzanna describes in this letter the plants her mother and their Indian friend used for food, cleansing, dyeing, and healing. Barbara is Historian for Schuyler County and lives in Irelandville.

Herbert Wisbey, Jr. writes about Col. Robert Ingersoll's 1889 visit to his birthplace in Dresden, New York. Professor Wisbey has included several quotes from Ingersoll's address at the Yates County Fair the same year. Herbert Wisbey is emeritus professor of American History at Elmira College, and is co-editor of the Mark Twain Society Bulletin.

Next Month

The September issue will feature an article by Richard Palmer with newspaper accounts of Canandaigua Lake steamboats, the beginning of a two-part account on flour mills in the Genesee Country by Robert Koch, and a report by Herbert Wisbey on the life of Coates Kinney who lived in Yates County at the north end of Lake Keuka. There will also be John Rezelman's review of T. N. Smith's Sept., 1888 diary, and more from Barbara Bell's Letters to Suzanna.

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